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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Visa Bulletins released by the Department of State for January and February 2012 showed huge jumps forward for retrogressed EB-2 (Employment-Based second preference) cases, making visas available for cases filed on or before January 1, 2010 for Indian and Chinese Nationals. Unfortunately, that gain is about to be lost. Charlie Oppenheim, Chief, Visa Control and Reporting at DOS, announced that he will likely retrogress India and China born EB2 priority dates to around August 2007, effective with either the May or June 2012 Visa Bulletin. This will bring green card wait times back to nearly 5 years.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Restrictive immigration laws have long caused problems for Silicon Valley. According to Silicon Valley, foreign nationals who come to the U.S. to study often end up starting up companies in their home countries. In most cases, they would prefer to start their businesses here in the U.S., but the immigration process is just to cumbersome and daunting. In response, CIS has expressed a desire to become “more responsive to the fast-changing needs of tech start-ups.” According to CBS news, CIS intends to tap 5 individuals from the private sector to “guide policy and training for officials who make decisions on individual immigration applications.” The goal, CIS says, is “to keep the agency from applying traditional formulas to the unorthodox business models common on the startup scene.” What exactly will be developed remains to be be seen.

Friday, March 2, 2012

When a foreign national employee is seeking to adjust his/her status from nonimmigrant to lawful permanent resident, s/he must prove that s/he always maintained valid nonimmigrant status. The easiest way to prove this, is to show paystubs. If a person lost his/her job, and therefore stopped getting paychecks, s/he failed to maintain status, and will not be permitted to change status within the United States. Of late, the California Service Center has begun to issue RFE’s (Requests for Further Evidence) seeking three, and sometimes even four, paystubs from the employer. As always, the moral of the story is one should always maintain valid status